Steve Tvedten of Get Set, Inc.'s email to Lyndon Hawkins of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation .

Questions have been asked of the California Department of Pesticide Control since Fontana Unified School District declined to consider a pesticide free IPM program because of the Department of Agriculture's opinion about only utilizing registered pesticides to eliminate pests.  The California Department of Pesticide Regulation has remained silent and not responded to these issues:

Dear Lyndon,  The August 15, 1998 issue of the Lancet said in part:  "...the difficult issue about the "safety" of organophosphorous agents is not acute safety but whether chronic low-dose exposure to organophosposphorus compounds causes neuropsychiatric disease without producing acute cholinergic symptoms."

At the Spring Conference, May 6-9, 1999,  the American College for Advancement in Medicine met in Orlando, Florida.  The Program Syllabus was "Exploring the functions of the Brain:  Solutions for Tomorrow."  Allan D. Lieberman, M.D., from the Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine discussed the "NEUROLOGIC EFFECTS OF LOW DOSE TOXIC EXPOSURE:  THE ORGANOPHOSPHATE PESTICIDE CONNECTION".

Raymond Singer summarizes the manifestations of neurotoxicity (in his 1990 Neurotoxicity Guidebook) as follows:

1)  Personality changes
     a) Irritability
     b) Social withdrawal
     c) Amotivation (disturbance of executive function)
2) Mental changes
    a) Problems with memory for recent events
    b) Concentration difficulties
    c) Mental slowness
3) Sleep disturbance
4) Chronic fatigue.
5) Headache
6) Sexual dysfunction
7) Numbness in hands or feet (depends upon the substance)
8) Recognition that there has been a loss of mental function
9) Additional symptoms are motor incoordination, sensory disturbances and psychosis.

(Lyndon, why do you insist on contaminating your schools with "registered" poisons that have such dangerous chronic poisoning symptoms for the students, teachers and staff like these?)

J. H. Will in the March, 1972 issue of CRC Critical Reviews in Toxicolgy on page 190 noted:

1)  The finding of no significant inhibition of cholinesteraseactivity within either plasma or red blood cells does not rule out the possibility of a significant exposure to inhibitors of cholinesterases.

W. E. Wright in his 1994, 2nd edition of  "A practical Approach to Occupational and Environmental Medicine" succinctly described how a hazardous material can:

1)  Alter a biological function without apparent signs and symptoms
2)  Develop a brand new disease
3)  Bring to light an existing subclinical condition
4)  Predispose an individual to develop a disease
5)  Aggravate a pre-existing disease

(Lyndon, I repeat the question,  "Why do you want to continually expose and/or poison the people and the environment of California with these dangerous and totally unnecessary "registered" poisons?)

The Syllabus noted: Remember, also, that poisoned people are reacting initially to their extrinsic source of pesticide (poison) only to continue to react to their own intrinsic and stored pesticide (poisons) in their tissues.  The classical so-called flashback is a result of a sudden release of stored chemicals (poisons) or drugs.

The professonal labels for two "registered" organophosphate pesticide labels clearly state:

   "Repeated exposure to cholinesterase inhibitors may, without warning, cause prolonged susceptibility to very small doses of any cholinesterase inhibitor." [Dursban Plus Concentrate]."

   "Repeated inhalation or skin contact may, without symptoms, progressively increase susceptibility to poisoning."  [Thimet 600 Cyanimid]."
 

The Syllabus went on with more corroborating evidence that low dose OP exposures can and do adversely affect organ systems without altering cholinesterase levels, and then concluded with a question.  "If you can produce these changes to the immune system without altering cholinesterase levels or provoking any signs or symptoms, how would you ever know that you had even been exposed (poisoned)?"

Lyndon, my concluding questions are still very simple,  "Why do you personally demand that only dangerous "registered" pesticide poisons can "legally" be used to "control" California pests, when many proven alternatives exist that we know control the pests safer, better, cheaper, more effectively and do so without contaminating the children and the environment?  When will it be "legal" (in your opinion) to wash your can in California?

Respectfully,  Stephen L. Tvedten.